【雞尾酒系列】最危險的雞尾酒Blue Blazer——藍色火焰::The Blue Grass Blazer

Good evening and welcome to The Den. My name is Craig, the bar manager here at The Atlantic Restaurant. As you can see behind me, I have a beautiful range of spirits, liqueurs and flavors. Although today I'm going to focus on one of my favorite cocktails here at The Den, the Blue Grass Blazer. The Blue Grass Blazer is an interpretation on one of the most infamous cocktails in cocktail history. Way back in the 1800s, the grandfather of bartending professor Jerry Thomas made the Blue Blazer out of the El Dorado Hotel in California. As the story goes, he would never make this cocktail unless it was below 10 degrees outside or if one of his customers had a cold or a flu. My interpretation of this is still a very, very simple drink, but like the Blue Blazer, it was the method in which it was created that really got the punter's attention. So without further ado, I'm going to get straight into it. The trick of this cocktail is to make sure that all your ingredients and everything that you're using is hot. We're going to be using fire here, so I will make sure that I'm being very, very careful. I hope you do, too, if you ever do try and attempt this one at home. In these tankards, I have some boiling water. I'm going to pour a little bit of that into my glass, swirl it around. That's not an ingredient. It's just to get the drink warm and throw that out. First of all, we're going to add a little bit of Angostura Bitters. For those of you who are famous or enjoy the lemon-lime bitters, this will be right up your alley. We're just going to coat the inside of this glass before we light it. By lighting it, we're going to create a beautiful burnt orange bitter flavor around the inside of the glass. Discard the excess. Make sure the flame is out. Then we can go on to the next ingredient. The next ingredient is probably the most important. I have here a bit of Woodford Reserve bourbon. This, in fact, is actually where the drink gets its name. In Kentucky in America, Woodford Reserve gets all its ingredients. All the grains are harvested in what's known as the bluegrass region, hence the name the bluegrass blazer. I'm going to go ahead and add a good 60 mils of this. Chuck the water out first, of course. 60 mils of the bourbon. If you look into this bourbon, what you will find are some beautiful notes of orange and cinnamon. In making this drink, I didn't really want to change the base spirit or alter it in any way. I'm simply going to back it up by what it already has. I have here a little bit of cinnamon syrup. The bourbon itself can be quite sweet, so not too much of this is required. About 8 to 10 mils of cinnamon syrup. I'm also going to complement that with a little bit of Grand Marnier. A good 20 mils of Grand Marnier. It's just going to give that depth and body and robust, beautiful flavor that you're about to taste. That's all our ingredients. As I say, it's very, very simple, but this is where the fun bit starts. Transferring my liquid into the hotter of the two tankards. We're just going to swirl that around, make it nice and warm. The heat's important. The hotter it is, the easier this is going to be to ignite. As my flame's burning there, I'm simply going to toss it between each tankard. This was the method in which Jerry Thomas used to get all those punters flocking around the bar. If he was like the bartender of today, I'm sure by now he's got plenty of girls' numbers and plenty of tips in his tip jar. Look at that. There we go. Beautiful. Nectar of the gods, ladies and gentlemen. Make sure your flame's extinguished. That's all the dangerous part out of the way. I'm just going to garnish this now. A little bit of cinnamon stick. Pop it on in. To crown the lot, we're going to use a little bit of burnt orange zest. We're going to heat up this orange rind and squeeze it over the drink. Boom. A little bit of a fiery poof for you. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the Bluegrass Blazer. I hope you enjoy it and I hope to see you here soon. Thank you very much.